[gentle music]

Presenter 1

Welcome to this professional learning suite brought to you by the Languages and Culture team. We recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to Elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

On screen are the learning intentions and success criteria for this professional learning, which are also available in your workbook.

Presenter 2

In New South Wales, the whole curriculum is being reformed. The reform aims to strengthen and streamline what is taught in schools. It is also an opportunity to engage and reenergise what we teach and how we teach it. It focuses on making clear what is essential in the curriculum to give more time for deep learning. The reform also aims to establish stronger foundations in English and mathematics, and provide stronger links between HSC subjects and career pathways. The Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus is part of this whole of curriculum reform with every subject K–10 getting a new syllabus coupled with a total rethink about content and pedagogy. For modern languages these are the critical aspects. What does the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus look like? And what are the key messages? And how is it set out? The aim of the new Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus is to empower students to become effective communicators, to develop intercultural capability and an enjoyment of language learning.

As we know, communication is the central goal of the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus as indicated by the red line. Students learn to communicate through Applying knowledge of language systems, including vocabulary and grammar, and by Developing intercultural capability. They do this through the syllabus’s 3 focus areas: Interacting, Understanding texts and Creating texts. Here is the screenshot taken from the digital syllabus showing the outcome and content for Stage 4 Interacting. As you can see, the name of the focus area is on top of the page in the dark blue box. In this case, Interacting. Right underneath is the Stage 4 outcome for Interacting, including the outcome code and the outcome itself ‘Exchanges information and opinions in a range of familiar contexts by using culturally appropriate language’. The subheadings and dot points on the right-hand side represent the content for this outcome. For all outcomes, the content is considered essential learning for students to meet that outcome. You can vary the amount of time you spend and depth you provide on each, depending on the needs of your students. The first content group shows the communication skills and functions which students will need to master in order to demonstrate achievement of the outcome. The second content group summarises the knowledge of language systems students will need to develop. And finally, the third group summarises the cultural knowledge students will need to develop to ensure they are able to communicate using culturally appropriate language. It’s important to remember that in order to do 1 the communication skills, students need 2. And in order to do it in a culturally appropriate way, they need 3.

With every subject K–10 and almost all subjects in Stage 6 getting new syllabuses, this really is a once in a generation opportunity for all of us to think about what we teach and how we teach it. In considering what is important and exciting about the new Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus, these are the areas that the department support focuses on to ensure we’re providing the highest quality advice and sample programming documents to teachers. Firstly, we ensured we’re supporting students to move from rehearsed to scaffolded to spontaneous interaction. Interacting is quite different from how it has been approached in previous syllabuses. Spontaneous interactions are just that. They are not a role-play in which students are reading, or have rote-learned their parts. They are genuine interactions with pauses, mistakes and students being comfortable to seek clarification. Interactions should also be meaningful. Can students apply what they’ve learned in today’s lesson to communicate meaningfully with others? Syllabus content focuses on the student’s own personal world and the personal world of others. In our units, you will see students are communicating about themselves and things which interest them. We reduced the amount of content we expected students to learn. In place of long lists of vocabulary, we instead focused on deep understanding through practicing, recycling and building on language structures within each topic and across topics. We have provided strong foundations for future learning. The scope and sequence topics and skills build to Stage 6 outcomes and topics. Text types included also cover a range that can be found in Stage 6. Through backward mapping content from Stage 6 and backward mapping within our scope and sequence documents and our units of work, every inclusion is deliberate, supporting students to reach the end goal. When we walk into each Stage 4 mandatory class and imagine we’re seeing our future Stage 6 continuers students, it changes how and what we teach. This links to setting high expectations for all, while still ensuring our support is inclusive, designed with a range of students in mind. This includes students highly engaged in language learning to those less enthused. We have included scaffolding to support all learners. Scaffolding supports student success, which increases engagement. We’re great believers that you can’t give students too much information as long as you’re not giving them the answer. Our support showcases explicit teaching, including learning intentions and success criteria, and detailed information for teachers of varying degrees of experience. Our activities and tasks have a modelled, guided, independent approach, personalising the learning for students and providing immediate and ongoing feedback as students engage with and experiment with the content. We teach about the culture through the language. Culture should never be taught in isolation. It must be linked to the language itself. If it’s not, why are you teaching it? You can consider using these features as an informal checklist when writing your own programming documents. In languages, our syllabuses were still relatively new prior to curriculum reform, so we understand there may be a feeling of curriculum change fatigue.

As a result, here’s what some of you may be thinking of doing, and we understand. Some teachers might swap new outcomes for the old, or focus only on the 3 reduced outcomes. The concern with this is the intention and benefit of curriculum reform will be missed, and no shift in pedagogy will occur. Our areas of challenge are understanding the outcomes and their impact, being change agents for our students within our own capacity. There should be a visible change to how we teach and what we teach to ensure deep learning and student engagement. In the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus, students exchange information, opinions, ideas and perspectives in a range of contexts by using and manipulating culturally appropriate language. The syllabus also includes as content that students negotiate meaning, socialise with peers, and use and adapt a range of communication strategies. The other key difference is that interacting is now primarily done through oral language.

Going back to the aim. Through invigorated teaching and learning, we hope our students become confident communicators in the target language, enjoy language learning, feel supported to learn at higher levels through inclusive activities and content which reflects their personal worlds, and recognise the interconnections between language, culture and identity. When designing your scope and sequence, we recommend that you embed the spiral approach. The acquisition of a language is a cumulative process. Therefore, a continuous and sequenced approach is essential when developing your scope and sequence. By designing opportunities for students to revisit what they have learned in previous units, gradually using language in more complex situations, we’re reinforcing and building on the vocabulary and structures over time. As a result, students’ knowledge is deepened and broadened and students experience a feeling of success.

Another thing we really recommend is that you use a backward mapping design to your units of work. Step one – Identify learning goals and outcomes. Step 2 – Determine measures of success. Step 3 – Plan instruction. You will be aware of this through our microlearning modules relating to curriculum reform, our sample units of work, through our unit of work guidelines and template, and our assessment guidelines. Being intentional about both summative and formative assessment opportunities allows for student reflection so they can identify areas of need and teacher reflection in case we need to redesign the next learning sequence to support students at their point of need. While you are implementing the new syllabus for the first time this year, it’s critical you regularly reflect on how you’re going and plan for next steps. Have you planned to change how you teach and what you teach? The degree to which you will need to make changes will vary from teacher to teacher. What we know for sure is that if we don’t change to some degree, we may not be meeting the intent of curriculum reform, or the syllabus. Take a moment to consider if anything has changed for you and your students compared to this time last year. If nothing has changed, what opportunities are you missing? If you’re seeing positive change, identify what you’re doing differently and how to scale it to support students even further. If you’ve seen a negative change, what support do you think you need? It’s now time to pause and reflect. Refer to your booklet to complete the reflection questions.

Kristen

Welcome to ‘Interacting’ in action, an exploration of the Interacting focus area and its related Stage 4 and Stage 5 outcomes.

The learning intentions for this presentation are: The Interacting focus area involves an exchange of information, with students negotiating meaning. There is a range of ways to embed elements of spontaneity to support authentic interactions. Interacting activities can be differentiated to cater for a range of learners. The success criteria for this presentation are: Teachers use their understanding to develop engaging, interacting activities for their own context. Teachers differentiate interacting ideas to support a range of students.

What is interacting in the context of the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus? As we know, communication is the central goal of the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus, as indicated by the red line. Students learn to communicate through applying knowledge of language systems including vocabulary and grammar, and by developing intercultural capability. They do this through the syllabus’ 3 focus areas. Interacting, Understanding texts and Creating texts. Today, we will focus on Interacting, explaining what it is, how it is different to Interacting in previous syllabuses, and how it is different to Creating texts. We will also demonstrate what it looks like in the classroom to show you how you can support your students to develop their communication skills and oral fluency.

First, let’s explore what is different about interacting in the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus compared to the previous language-specific syllabuses. Previously, in language-specific syllabuses, students in Stages 4 and 5 exchanged information, ideas and opinions on topics of interest and made plans, negotiated and solved problems, including through collaborative activities. In the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus by comparison, students exchange information, opinions, ideas and perspectives in a range of contexts by using and manipulating culturally appropriate language. The syllabus also includes as content that students negotiate meaning, socialise with peers, and use and adapt a range of communication strategies. It is this content that is quite different, so we’re going to take a look at what it means in the classroom. Before we do, it is important to note the other key difference is that interacting is now primarily done through oral language. So how do we recognise and design activities which support students to achieve the interacting outcomes in Stages 4 and 5? Here are some key features on Interacting. Interacting is reciprocal, with a purposeful and meaningful back and forth exchange. Students are listening to understand in order to gather information and continue the interaction. There is an element of spontaneity, created by a degree of unknown. If the interaction is completely rehearsed, it does not meet the interacting outcomes. Rather, it would be creating texts using spoken language. The degree of unknown results in students having to genuinely listen for understanding. Finally, interactions support students to negotiate meaning and develop fluency.

When students are required to move from scripted to scaffolded to spontaneous interactions, they gradually develop more confidence in using the language to communicate authentically. This includes communication strategies to keep the interaction flowing. Being able to negotiate meaning is key in developing communication skills and fluency. In order to be able to interact successfully, regardless of a level of language, students need to know what to do if they don’t understand, or can’t express themselves effectively. This is what we mean by negotiating meaning. It can include all the things we do when speaking in our everyday lives. Asking for clarification, correcting ourselves when we make a mistake, checking for understanding through paraphrasing, or by asking clarifying questions, using gestures and facial expressions and using fillers to show we’re thinking. By providing students with as much comprehensible target language input as possible in the lesson they become familiar with key vocabulary and grammar. By teaching students to negotiate meaning with appropriate phrases, gestures and conversation fillers, they are equipped to engage in sustained communication leading to oral fluency. It is important to note that oral fluency does not mean a continuous flow of perfectly pronounced grammatically correct sentences, but rather a consistent flow back and forth in an exchange of information.

It's important to remember that like all outcomes, the outcomes for Interacting are end of stage outcomes. The content represented by the subheadings and dot points in the syllabus as shown here is considered essential learning throughout the stage in order to achieve the outcome by the end of the stage. Students may be able to do some of this content early in the stage but will need time to develop mastery. Initially, you may think achieving genuine interaction in the classroom might be challenging, especially with large Stage 4 classes. We’d like to reassure you that it’s very possible and even a lot of fun. Let’s take a look at some sample interacting ideas from our language-specific resources available on the department’s website. You’ll notice that our activities focus on less vocabulary and more practise of structures. This method helps students to move the learning out of their working memory and into their long-term memory to lighten the cognitive load. This is a vital step in successful language acquisition.

Information gap activities are a great way to scaffold interactions when students are first learning a language. This example is from our Stage 4 French unit, ‘Let’s go to town’. Students work in pairs with each student having only half the information needed about where different people live in France or Australia. By asking each other questions, they can find out all the information they need about who lives where and whether they live in a house or an apartment. Students can be given a scaffold or a sample conversation to work from, as you can see on the slide. However, they need to add their own content each time they ask and answer a question, listening carefully to each other in order to complete the table and discover the unknown. At the bottom of the slide, you can see which content from the Stage 4 Interacting outcome this activity meets. Uses features of the sound system to interact and uses structures and features of the grammatical system to interact.

Story cubes are another great way for students to practise their language in a low stakes and achievable way. This example is from our Stage 4 Spanish unit, ‘At the table’. Students use visual prompts and predetermined questions to interact about food, preferences and mealtimes. Organise students into groups of 3 to 4, providing each group with a set of cubes. With students, identify the questions they could ask about each cube? For example, Cube 1: What is it? Cube 2: When do you eat it? Cube 3: When do you drink it? Cube 4: Do you like it? Cube 5: Why or why not? Using the sample questions as a scaffold, students interact to share details about their food preferences, mealtimes, and descriptions of foods or drinks by asking and answering the questions using the prompts on the cubes. Students take turns to ask the questions each time choosing another student to answer. In this case, the unknown factor comes from not knowing what words the dice will reveal each time. Encouraging students to think on their feet using rehearsed language with a degree of spontaneity. This activity aligns with ‘Uses features of the sound system in spoken interactions’, and ‘Expresses and explains emotions, opinions and personal preferences’ from the Stage 4 Interacting outcome.

In our sample units, you’ll notice we have included differentiation strategies in grey text boxes. Story cubes are a great way to differentiate the content for a range of learners. For example, for students requiring additional support, you could consider any or all of the following: including the vocabulary on the cube, providing scaffolded responses in the target language, reducing the number of dice focusing on just one to 2 dice in each round of play. For high potential and gifted students, or students with advanced proficiency, allow students to create their own sentences based on the prompts each time. Students may want to also design their own competition. For example: Whose cubes are the most accurate when compared to the student’s own mealtime preferences? Or: Whose cubes make the silliest sentence? For example, ‘I eat cereal for dinner.’ ‘I hate cereal because it’s yummy.’

The alphabet game is a great way to get students to organise themselves using language to solve a problem. This example is from our Stage 4 German unit, once again on food. In this activity, students interact with each other to discover their favourite food. They must then organise themselves into alphabetical order according to the first letter of their favourite food using phrases in the target language. The teacher begins by asking the students, ‘What is your favourite food?’ in the target language. Based on the first letter of their favourite food, students form a line in approximate alphabetical order. For example, if the student’s favourite food starts with an A, they will start by placing themselves at or near the front of the line. In the target language, students then interact with those around them asking and responding to the question: What is your favourite food? To ensure they are in alphabetical order. Students will need to use phrases such as ‘come forward’, ‘stand here’, ‘go back’, to reorder themselves as required. These phrases will be written on the board prior to the activity and practised as a class. Once the students believe they have organised themselves into the correct alphabetical order, the teacher goes along the line interacting with each student about their favourite food and checking students are in the correct order. If a student is out of order, the students must move around again before the teacher continues moving down the line. This activity is lots of fun for students and is a great way for them to socialise with each other while understanding and reciprocating information about their own and others’ personal worlds.

Once again, here are some examples of differentiation for this task. For high potential and gifted students, or students with advanced proficiency, the teacher encourages students to add details about their favourite food, such as an adjective to describe it, or how often they eat the food during their interaction. For students requiring additional support, consider providing a range of food options on flashcards for the students to identify in the target language and place in alphabetical order. The teacher can then interact with each student asking them about their favourite food. You can see this is a game which can be played across any topic using a range of vocabulary and grammatical structures. You’re probably all familiar with the version of the game ‘Guess Who?’ This version we’re about to show you is a little more scaffolded and comes from our Stage 5 French unit on hobbies. Like all the activities in this presentation, you can adapt the idea for any topic or language. In the target language students write down 5 sentences that describe their activities, routines, and/or music tastes based on language that I’ve learned so far. Students write their sentences on a piece of paper with their name. For example, ‘I play electric guitar.’ ‘I love animals.’ ‘I get up early on Saturdays because I play football for Gosford.’ ‘I hate dancing.’ ‘My favourite band is Queen.’ When they finish writing their 5 sentences, students move around the room using the sentences they’ve written to formulate questions to ask each other, noting down the answers they are given and trying to collect as many responses from as many different students as they can. For example, Student A, ‘I play electric guitar. Do you play electric guitar?’ Student B, ‘No, I don’t play it. Do you like animals?’ Student A, ‘Yes, I love animals.’ After a set period of time, for example, 5 minutes, the teacher gathers all of the statements that the students have written about themselves and reads them out to the class. Students attempt to guess who is being described based on the information they have gathered from each other using the structure ‘Is it’ with the person’s name. The teacher responds in the target language and awards a point for each correct answer. When students are interacting with each other, the activity aligns with the Stage 5 Interacting content dot point ‘Students express and compare emotions and personal preferences; Use a wide range of features of the sound system in spoken interactions, and Understand and reciprocate information about their own and others’ personal worlds.’

For students requiring additional support, provide the structures in the target language to assist them to ask the questions. Depending on ability, students may ask with gesture and answer with yes or no. The aim of the activity is to exchange information in order for students to find out as much as they can about each other. In this next activity from our Stage 5 Spanish unit, ‘Let’s celebrate!’ students are asked to identify and describe clothing using adjectives and adverbs through a series of questions from the teacher. Show students images of clothing and write a modelled example of a description of one of the items on the board, using an adverb with an adjective. For example, ‘They are very stripey socks’, or ‘The shoes are a little bit ugly’. Question the students in the target language to co-create descriptions of more images. Asking details such as, ‘What is it? It’s a shirt.’ ‘What colour is it? It’s a white shirt.’ ‘Is it a plain or patterned shirt? It’s a plain white shirt.’ ‘Is it quite plain or very plain? It’s a very plain white shirt.’ In the second part of this activity, students interact with their peers to ask and give their opinions about items of clothing. First, they complete the table with the item they prefer, ‘I prefer’, and their opinion ‘because it is [adverb] [adjective]’. To complete the table, they then interact with a partner who identifies and describes which item of clothing they prefer, with their own justification. Through this activity, students are initially addressing the Stage 5, Creating texts outcome, specifically adjusting and adapting vocabulary from a wide range of themes to create texts. When they move to the second part of the activity, they are discussing and justifying opinions, ideas and perspectives which addresses interacting. Here is an example from our Stage 4 Italian unit on school, but you’ll see a version of this activity in most of our sample units because it’s such a good one for students to practise their skills. In this ‘Find someone who...?’ activity, students must find another student who has the same school routine as them by asking a series of questions. Profile cards are provided so that students can practise a broad variety of vocabulary such as times, modes of transport and ages. Distribute a different profile card to each student. First, students answer questions one to 7 in complete sentences in the answer column of the table using the information on their profile card. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Where do you live?’ ‘What time do you arrive at school?’ ‘What time do you leave?’ ‘What time do you eat at school?’ ‘How do you get to school?’ When students have created their responses, they move around the room asking different students questions, in order to find someone who has the same response as them for each one. They write that person’s name in the space provided in the table. While the first part of this activity once again aligns with the Creating texts outcome, once students are moving around the room and they are interacting, they are understanding and reciprocating information about their own and others’ personal worlds, which is, of course, interacting. Battleship is a great way to encourage students to interact even when they have limited language. In this example, from our Term 1 Chinese unit for Stage 4, students must guess which September dates their partner has chosen before their partner guesses their dates. Each student is given 2 blank September calendars: ‘My dates’ and ‘My opponent’s dates’. On the ‘My dates’ calendar, students circle 15 different dates as follows: One single date, a row of 2 dates, a row of 3 dates, a row of 4 dates and a row of 5 dates. Each row of dates can run horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. Rows cannot overlap. Whoever’s birthday is closest to 1 September goes first, Student A. Students alternate asking the question to try and find each other’s dates. For example, Student A, ‘Is it the 30th?’ Student B, ‘No, it's not the 30th. Is it the 20th?’ Student A, ‘Yes, it’s the 20th. Is it the 17th?’ Student B, ‘Yes, it’s the 17^th’. On the ‘My dates’ calendar, students record the hits their opponent makes by drawing a cross on any dates they identify. Students record their opponent’s guesses on the ‘My opponent’s dates’ calendar by drawing a circle around the dates they ask about and record the hits they make by drawing a cross on the dates they identify. The winner is the first student to correctly guess their opponent’s 15 dates. You’ll notice lots of game style activities like this in our sample units. They support students to socialise with peers and in this activity use features of the sound system in spoken interactions.

Card games like story cubes are another great way to introduce an element of the unknown interactions. In this activity, another one from our Stage 5 Spanish unit, students form groups of 3 or 4 to interact about clothing, using the cards as visual prompts. The cards are provided as a table for teachers or students to cut up. Students place the pile of cards face down on the desk. When directed, Student A draws the top card and asks the student to their right, Student B, ‘What is this?’ Student B responds by identifying the item of the card with the appropriate details. For example, ‘a long dress’, ‘a striped T-shirt’ and so on. Student A then asks, ‘Where do you wear this?’ Student B replies with an appropriate event or place. For example, ‘I wear a striped T-shirt to the beach’, ‘I wear a long dress to a birthday party’. Student B then takes the next card from the pile and repeats the interaction with Student C based on the new card. Repeat the process until all the cards in the pile have been correctly identified. If students are in even groups, they can race other groups to finish the round first. Additional questions can be added to these interactions such as, ‘Do you like this?’ Why? Why not? ‘Do you wear this?’ Why? Why not? Through this activity, students are using a wide range of features of the sound system in spoken interactions, and adjusting and adapting vocabulary from a wide range of themes to interact.

In this activity, students participate in rounds based on a speed dating format to exchange information on a particular topic. In this example, students are practising structures they have learned in a unit about hobbies and pastimes. Prior to commencing this activity, it would be beneficial to brainstorm key vocabulary instructions with students. The teacher uses a random group generator to match students with a different partner each time. Once students have found their designated partner, the teacher holds up a picture of an activity. To start the round the teacher rings a bell or plays a song. With their designated partner, students discuss the activity on the card taking turns to ask and respond to a range of questions they have learned in the unit. For example, ‘What is it?’ ‘Do you like the activity?’ ‘Do you do the activity?’ ‘Who is your favourite player of the activity?’ ‘Would you like to try the activity?’ ‘Is the activity your favourite?’ After one minute, the teacher indicates that the time is up and then repeat the process. Be mindful, in all activities, that working with other students may cause anxiety for some of our students. Consider adjustments you may need to make such as working in smaller groups or working with a teacher.

For students requiring additional support, provide sentence builders or scaffolds to assist students in their interaction. These sample sentence builders include information like how often they do the activity, whether they like it or not, and why. For potential and gifted students, or students with advanced proficiency, students report the details they have learnt about their previous partner to their new partner using the third person form of verbs. In addition, students can add details about the activity being discussed using past tense structures. For example, ‘Last weekend I went skiing, it was fun.’ This style of activity meets a lot of content from the syllabus. This example aligns with expressing and explaining emotions, opinions and personal preferences, socialising with peers, using relevant and familiar vocabulary from a range of themes to interact, and using structures and features of the grammatical system to interact.

The activities so far have been heavily scaffolded to support students using prompts, visual cues or sentence builders when interacting. In this activity, students will attempt to interact without the use of visual aids or prompts. It is important to remind the students that while teachers maintain high expectations, the aim of the activity is oral fluency, an exchange of information between them and their partner that includes gestures, conversation fillers such as um and pardon, as well as self-correction, not perfectly structured sentences. In this activity, students are first asked to predict their partner’s daily school routine. By predicting the comprehensible input from their partner, students’ working memory will have less to do, and their cognitive load will be lighter. Working with the teacher, the class brainstorms questions in the target language about daily routine using phrases and vocabulary they have learnt. For example, ‘What time do you get up?’ ‘Do you eat breakfast?’ ‘Do you shower at night or in the morning?’ ‘Do you like getting up early?’ and so on. The teacher then pairs each student with a partner, or partners. Groups of 3 work too. For each question, students guess what they think their partner’s response will be and write it in English. The teacher directs students to take turns asking each other the questions they have brainstormed, checking whether the guesses they were made were correct as they go. Lastly, students can compare notes to see how accurate their predictions were. To increase spontaneity over time, we need to ease students into the process. At beginner level, allow the students to write the questions down as demonstrated in this activity. Students could also use chat mats, or sentence builders. As students build confidence and oral fluency, direct them to interact without the questions in front of them, gradually removing scaffolded responses. This activity supports students to use a wide range of features of the sound system in spoken interactions, and control and manipulate a range of structures and features of the grammatical system to interact. Speed dating style and mind reader activities are a great way to revise content before end of unit assessment.

I hope these activities have given you plenty of food for thought about how you can support students to interact right from the start of Term 1, Stage 4. They have shown a range of strategies to move students from scripted to scaffolded to spontaneous interactions, supporting them to use the language to communicate authentically. We’d now like you to use the activities provided in the workbook to take some time to familiarise yourself with the syllabus. Please pause the video now.

Elisabeth

Hello everyone. Thank you so much for engaging with our Q&A session. I’m Elisabeth Robertson, and I’m the coordinator Languages and Culture for the New South Wales Department of Education. Joining me is Shanelle Ingram and Victoria Hay, who are both languages advisers on our team. The questions we’ll be answering today are genuine questions submitted by language teachers. They’ve been sourced through network meetings and via the Statewide staffroom. We’re not going to shy away from answering the tough questions, as we understand that these questions are what teachers are feeling most unsure about during these early days of using the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus. So let’s kick off with the first question, Shanelle.

Shanelle

Will the new syllabus increase engagement, particularly with the Stage 4 students?

Elisabeth

That is such a good question. The syllabus aim includes students developing an interest in, and enjoyment of, language learning. This means the syllabus has actually been designed with student engagement in mind. We can see this in a range of ways. There’s reduced content to support cognitive load; it’s more inclusive of a range of student needs to support all students to engage in learning; there’s a stronger focus on students’ personal worlds; the syllabus actually calls out that communicating is the central goal of language learning, and finally, Interacting has undergone a real rethink. Victoria, what’s different about Interacting?

Victoria

There are 2 main differences. Firstly, what’s really nice to see is that Interacting in the new syllabus focuses on using oral language. And, secondly, there’s been a big shift away from students reading aloud or using overly rehearsed language. Instead, Interacting is about students socialising and using language spontaneously. This enables lots of opportunities for students to use the language through fun activities and games.

Shanelle

And that’s what we’re really excited about in the support we’ve created for teachers. Through the activities we’ve designed, we’ve been able to showcase how to prioritise students engaging with and enjoying language learning. Activities are scaffolded to enable students to practise and build on their language skills throughout the unit, setting them up for success.

Elisabeth

And we know that success is a huge motivator in learning.

Shanelle

Yes, it is. This rethink about interacting really supports student engagement too. In our activities, students are interacting with each other about topics that are relevant to them, and instead of learning huge amounts of vocabulary, we’ve stripped the content back to support a focus on genuine communication and interaction, which naturally fosters engagement. In our units of work, there are so many engaging learning experiences including all sorts of different games to encourage students to socialise and enjoy their learning.

Victoria

Remember, we also have the student motivation and engagement course where you can learn about the interconnection between motivation, engagement and achievement. Okay, next question is, How do we assess ‘Interacting’ in a class of 30 students?

Elisabeth

We receive lots of questions from teachers about Interacting in the new syllabus, particularly in relation to large Stage 4 classes. It’s why we’ve included a session just on interacting as part of this professional learning package. While we love Interacting, we can certainly understand why Interacting outcomes can feel challenging to assess as interacting requires a level of spontaneity.

Victoria

Can you unpack that a little bit?

Elisabeth

Yeah, sure. The content in the syllabus includes ‘Exchanging and negotiating meaning to interact in the target language’. Negotiating meaning is about all the things we do when we naturally interact with someone such as pausing to think, seeking clarification, rephrasing, and even making mistakes and correcting ourselves.

Shanelle

Assessing large numbers of students, usually in Stage 4, adds another layer of complexity, but it is absolutely doable. You may want to consider formative assessment opportunities to begin with while you and your students get the hang of it. Include an interacting activity in a set of activities students are working on in pairs or small groups. Then, while they are working through those activities, move around each group to observe their interaction in order to gather data and offer effective feedback.

Elisabeth

We realised pretty early on when designing our support, that we would need to provide lots of ideas on scaffolding interactions to enable that degree of spontaneity. This is an example we created for Stage 4 French. In celebration of Bastille Day, your class would like to hold a small party. To help decide what to eat, students share opinions about possible food and drink choices. Each pair or small group of students is given this placemat with common French foods and drinks to choose from. In pairs or in groups of 3, students take turns pointing to different foods and drinks on the placemat and asking each other ‘tu aimes?’ Which means ‘Do you like?’ When answering, students include their opinion of the food or drink and the reason, using conjunctions. For example, and excuse my terrible pronunciation, ‘Tu aimes le jus? [Elisabeth speaks in foreign language] which means ‘Do you like juice? Yes, I like juice, but it’s unhealthy.’ The trick here is to let students practise and prepare. When they’re ready, they call you over and you choose 3 items for them to comment on. That embeds an element of the unknown, enabling students to think on their feet and be spontaneous. Information gap activities, card games, story cubes and even speed dating style activities are all great ways to assess large numbers of students with a degree of spontaneity. You can learn more in our ‘Interacting in action’ video included as part of this package. And you can also see a range of strategies in our units of work.

Victoria

It’s worth keeping in mind that if the teacher takes the role of a student and joins the activity like everyone else, they can efficiently gather data and offer feedback. You can use a simple rubric like this one to guide your feedback conversations with students to show them which skill or skills they need to work on and to what degree. Just by placing a tick, numbers or using any coding system in columns next to each student’s name, you can formatively assess a large number of students.

Shanelle

That looks really easy to implement. And remember, summative assessment tasks to assess large groups of students can be very similar to those used to formatively assess students. The difference is that a summative assessment needs to be assessed against marking guidelines. Marking every individual student in a spontaneous conversation can be time-consuming. It can also result in some students having more time to practise, which can be perceived as unfair. To overcome these obstacles, students could film or record their interaction during the first or the last 15 minutes of the lesson, all at the same time, to be viewed and marked later by the teacher. Even for summative assessment, students could play an interactive game in groups while the teacher moves around the room and marks everyone against the guidelines. The game could be designed to elicit a different response each time using prompts such as cards or story cubes, so the interactions are spontaneous and authentic every time. We’ve produced guidelines for how to assess Interacting, including through gameplay, which you can access on our website. Which brings us to our next question, How do I manage ‘Interacting’ in a distance education setting?

Victoria

Teaching in a distance education context may provide different challenges than in the regular classroom, especially when it comes to the Interacting outcomes. In DE schools, students receive their lessons through learning management systems to complete independently. They also participate in weekly online lessons with their teacher. We know that some DE schools also bring their cohorts in for face-to-face lessons, and these could focus on Interacting. To address the Interacting content dot points relating to socialising with peers, and making arrangements with peers, teachers can play the role of the peer where needed.

Elisabeth

That’s right. Socialising with peers and making arrangements with peers are the skills acquired as a result of the teaching and learning content, but they’re not an essential part of the process. Students can interact with their teacher and still achieve the outcome. This also applies to assessment. To address the Interacting outcomes in assessment tasks, ideally the interaction should be done with a peer, or with a group of peers. However, as an adjustment, the teacher can take the role of the peer.

Shanelle

As we just said, interacting requires students to not just exchange meaning, but to negotiate meaning, which is important content. We need to ensure that students can manage an element of the unknown while still understanding and reciprocating information. DE courses can also include sound files for students to record a response to without a script. If appropriate for the particular DE context, worksheet design platforms such as ‘wizer.me’ can be used to create interactive worksheets where responses can easily be responded to orally and recorded.

Elisabeth

It’s really important to remember that while many DE students are studying a language in this way because the language isn’t available at their home school, there are also many students enrolled in DE schools for a range of other reasons such as disability, health issues, including mental health issues and as a result of negative school experiences. For these students, you may need to make reasonable adjustments to ensure they can continue to access and participate in education. This may include scaffolding activities and providing cues, or using alternative formats to deliver content. The syllabus focuses on communication as the central goal and interacting is a key component of that. Avoid shying away from Interacting. Rather, think about ways your students can achieve the outcome in their own way. Keep in mind that whilst the syllabus does state that interacting is primarily done through oral language, students can use other forms of communication to supplement or replace speech. All righty, the next question is, How do I engage students in more than just culture?

Victoria

We want our students to learn to communicate in the target language. That’s the central aim of the syllabus and it’s also much more interesting for students than learning facts about places. The syllabus articulates that students apply knowledge of language systems and develop into cultural capability as they learn to communicate in the target language.

Elisabeth

What is intercultural capability?

Victoria

Intercultural capability is the capacity to exchange, understand and create meaning between people across languages and cultures, which is very different to teaching about culture. As we teach our language, we need to provide opportunities for students to explore the dynamic and interdependent nature of language and culture, including the values, beliefs and experiences that influence languages and language choices. When designing activities, we must embed opportunities for students to learn and use the language in the context of the target culture, or cultures. This can include exposure to authentic texts such as videos, music, websites or advertisements.

Elisabeth

Once again, we’ve included ideas for how to do this in our sample units. For example, our Stage 4 Spanish unit is called ‘To the table!’ and focuses on foods and drinks, including expressing preferences and comparing and explaining food choices. Students learn about Spanish mealtimes, traditional Spanish dishes, and how to order in a restaurant using culturally appropriate language. Similarly, in our Stage 4 Japanese unit on festivals, students are learning to invite a friend to an event and we focused on inviting them to a festival to allow the opportunity for students to explore the importance of festivals in Japanese culture. So when it comes to engaging students in more than just culture, it’s about providing students with cultural context for using the language and building their awareness that language is connected with cultural practises and values. What’s next, Victoria?

Victoria

Can I just replace the old outcomes with the new ones in my programming documents?

Elisabeth

The Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus is part of a whole of curriculum reform with every subject K–10 getting a new syllabus, coupled with a total rethink about content and pedagogy. If a teacher decided to just switch out the outcomes, that would be such a missed opportunity. It would mean missing out on all the benefits of the new syllabus, including its underpinning evidence-based in latest language learning pedagogies and its reduced content. We can also say from experience that it would result in the content of your teaching and learning programs not aligning with the syllabus. You can absolutely use the units of work you’ve created for the previous syllabus, but you will need to be making refinements to your teaching and learning activities in order to align them to the new syllabus outcomes and content. Speaking about content, another question we hear a lot is Are the content dot points mandatory? Shanelle.

Shanelle

In the syllabus every outcome has its own associated content, which is organised into content groups and content dot points. Every dot point is considered essential learning for students to meet the outcome. However, you can vary the amount of time you spend on each depending on the needs of your students.

Victoria

Absolutely. In our sample units after most teaching activities, you will see that we have included the most relevant content dot point or points. Whilst numerous content dot points may apply to an activity, we focus on the one or 2 with the strongest alignment to ensure that we are covering the full range of syllabus content.

Elisabeth

And we’ve done this as a teaching tool so that teachers can see what the content looks like in the classroom. We’re certainly not expecting teachers to do this, and nor is it a requirement from NESA. We did find it really helpful, however, as a way to build our own understanding of the syllabus, and also to crosscheck which content we had covered in each unit to ensure we were equitably building student skills across all outcomes and content. Okay, the next question is, Are there mandatory topics or units that we must cover? Victoria.

Victoria

No, there are no mandatory topics or units to cover. You can decide what you think your students will enjoy learning about as long as there is a link to students’ personal worlds, and that the context and communicative purposes are familiar to students. You will see in our sample scope and sequences and units of work a wide range of engaging topics and themes. What’s important is that you use a spiral approach when designing your scope and sequence and units. By designing opportunities for students to revisit themes and topics covered previously, gradually using language in more complex situations and across different focus areas, we’re reinforcing and building on the vocabulary and structures over time with different macro skills. As a result, students’ knowledge is deepened and broadened and students experience a feeling of success in various forms of communication.

Shanelle

Remember, that NESA has language-specific examples and grammar guides, which can also assist you in planning units of work.

Elisabeth

How can I approach reporting for the new syllabus, including the allocation of weightings to outcomes, or to assessment tasks?

Shanelle

Decisions about reporting and weightings of assessment tasks or outcomes are school-based. Use your professional judgement aligned with guidance from your school executive. In Years 7–10, there is no minimum or maximum number of tasks, and no minimum or maximum weighting requirements. If your school requires you to include weightings, while there is no requirement to formally assess every outcome with only 3 outcomes per stage, the department does recommend it. However, you don’t need to assign equal weighting to each task and/or outcome.

Elisabeth

Language learning is a cumulative skill, and our assessment schedule should reflect this. If you do need to assign weightings to your tasks, consider the complexity of each task and whether you are assessing more than one outcome. You should also consider the level of difficulty. Does the task justify the weighting? The timing of the task. What would be the implications of placing too much weighting on the first task and students not performing well? In terms of reporting, it’s important to provide a variety of ways that students can demonstrate their learning and that there is a balance of skills.

Victoria

This next question is another one we often hear. How do I teach script using the new syllabus? For scripted languages, learning the script plays a vital role in students’ ability to communicate, which is the central goal of language learning in the syllabus. Knowledge of script can also support students to develop intercultural capability.

Shanelle

That’s right. Script relates to writing and reading, aligning with the Understanding texts, and Creating texts focus areas. And while Interacting is done primarily through oral language, written interactions can also occur where appropriate given that our students often interact through written texts such as direct messaging on social media. We don’t recommend teaching script as a standalone unit. Teaching script should be embedded in each term’s content and topics. While students are developing mastery you can, of course, support script with Romaji in Japanese and Pinyin in Chinese. Elisabeth.

Elisabeth

How do we cater for different abilities, including high potential and gifted students, and students with advanced proficiency? In our sample units, you’ll see we’ve included strategies for differentiation in grey text boxes like this. These are ideas only, as differentiation happens in the classroom based on your students. Sometimes we have provided specific strategies relating to an activity or task, and other times we have provided general advice based on a sequence of lessons. In both the syllabus, and NESA’s language-specific support documents, you’ll also find ideas for each proficiency level.

Victoria

And, remember, for high potential and gifted students, our team has also created the high potential and gifted students in languages 7–10 course. The course unpacks the department’s policy as well as how to support students in a languages context.

Elisabeth

Thanks, Victoria. Now we know in some schools across New South Wales they have difficulty finding a languages teacher, so colleagues have been asking, Are there units of work for non-language trained teachers? Our units, especially those for Stage 4, have been designed for teachers with minimal right through to extensive language teaching experience. All student worksheets contain responses for any teacher who’s feeling unsure about the correct response. And vocabulary and language structures are explicit with examples every time. So, while they’re not designed for teachers with no language experience, they are suitable for teachers who may lack confidence.

Shanelle

As Elisabeth said, all activities and resources are included in our sample units. With a little support in pronunciation, for example, through an online platform or a language speaking colleague, non-languages trained teachers could teach our Stage 4 units. We would recommend, however, that they don’t take on one of the scripted languages. Stage 4 French, Spanish, German and Italian are currently available. Our Stage 4 Chinese unit, while it’s a scripted language, is for Term 1, so it does show you what a language unit looks like for students who have absolutely no prior experience in the language, and the activities in there are easily transferable to any language. So next up, Do you recommend using a textbook?

Victoria

That’s another common one, isn’t it? Whether you use a textbook or not is up to you. Many textbooks provide great texts for understanding texts and some great ideas for creating texts, but they have limitations. For example, few textbooks provide authentic spontaneous interacting tasks. If you do prefer using a textbook, the new syllabus won’t require you to change textbooks. However, it is an opportunity to reflect on your practice and identify resources which align with the requirements of the syllabus.

Shanelle

The vocabulary in textbooks may also not suit the needs of your students, or may be overwhelming, so use any textbook or resource judiciously. Have a look at the content you are teaching, whether you are following a textbook or not, and consider the authenticity and usefulness of the language in the resources. Are your students enjoying using the language that is being taught? Is there a deep learning of sentence structures and communicating for relevant purposes, or is it more heavily focused on lists of words? This is an opportunity to refresh our resources and pedagogy to better engage students. As we know, many language teachers work in isolation, so this next question is an important one. I’m a beginning teacher, the only language teacher at my school and my head teacher is not languages trained. Where do I go to seek help, share resources or make connections?

Elisabeth

The Languages and Culture team provides an active sharing community through our languages Statewide staffroom, which is hosted on Microsoft Teams. You’ll find our resources, resources shared by teachers, ideas and details about our professional learning, and all sorts of other opportunities and information. It provides a collaborative space for teachers to ask and respond to questions via the community notice board. If you’re not already a member of the languages Statewide staffroom, please join as we love to see teachers connecting with us, and also connecting with each other. Once a term we run a statewide staff meeting via Teams with the focus over the last 18 months being the new syllabus. You can catch up on any sessions you’ve missed on our Languages New South Wales YouTube channel.

Victoria

We understand that language teachers are often the only teacher in their school, and this can feel isolating, especially if you’re a new teacher and your head teacher is not languages trained. The Languages and Culture team is always available to provide support and can be easily contacted by phone, email or through the Statewide staffroom. We also run language teacher networks across the state and these are a great way to connect with colleagues and access on the ground professional learning. Our networks and their leaders are listed on our website and you can contact them directly to join. You can join the network nearest your school, nearest your home, or if you’d prefer the virtual network which runs online.

Shanelle

Our team also runs a great mentor program to support beginning or isolated teachers through which beginning teachers are paired with an experienced language teacher to build their capacity and confidence. To support teachers who lead the languages faculty in their school as the sole teacher, as coordinator for a small faculty, or even as head teacher, we have a guide on our website called Leading languages 7–12. We encourage you to read this document and share it with your head teacher. It has been updated to support the new languages syllabuses.

Elisabeth

Okay, Victoria and Shanelle, it’s the last question, and it is, Where do I find the resources?

Victoria

Here is a list of what we have on the department’s website. Programming guidelines. Assessment guidelines. Unit of work guidelines and sample templates. Stage 4 and 5 generic scope and sequences. Language-specific units of work in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish with Korean and Indonesian to be published later this year. As Elisabeth said, on our YouTube site, we have recordings of all past statewide staff meetings on implementing the new syllabus. On NESA’s website, you will find teaching advice, language-specific examples and grammar guides with structures that are suggested for students to use by the end of Stage 5 for all proficiency levels.

Shanelle

And remember, we’re always providing sample ideas and resources through our Statewide staffroom for you to try in the classroom.

Elisabeth

Thanks Shanelle, and thanks Victoria. And thank you so much for joining us for this Q&A session. If we haven’t addressed a question you still have about the new syllabus, please get in touch via the Statewide staffroom. Bye for now.

Shanelle

Bye everyone.

Victoria

Thanks for watching.

Presenter 1

We hope you have found this information and these activities helpful. You can continue the conversation through the languages statewide staffroom. Not a member yet? Join via the QR code. The survey takes less than a minute. In addition to our support through the staffroom, we also offer our resources, professional learning and local networks. Have you checked out the department’s resources to support the Modern Languages K–10 Syllabus? We have programming and assessment guidelines as well as advice and a template for writing a unit of work. For both teachers and faculty leaders, we have implementation journeys to guide your planning. We have also created both generic and language-specific support, including full units of work with all related resources for Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Italian and Spanish. In Week 4 each term, we host a statewide staff meeting. In 2023, each term statewide staff meeting focused on the syllabus. You can access the recordings if you miss the live sessions. We know that many teachers prefer more personalised professional learning including face-to-face meetings. We have 19 networks in operation across New South Wales to support you at the local level. Generally, the content each term is a follow-on from the statewide staff meeting with an opportunity to deepen your learning and collaborate with colleagues. We also have a one-hour accredited professional learning e-course if you’re still familiarising yourself with the syllabus and its key shifts in content and pedagogy. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you’ve found this professional learning valuable.

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